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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235896">Writ for a Scarab</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyrebirdSliske/pseuds/LyrebirdSliske'>LyrebirdSliske</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Elder Scrolls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Assassination Attempt(s), Body Horror, Dog lives, Gen, Nearly Eaten, POV Second Person, Stand Alone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 22:21:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyrebirdSliske/pseuds/LyrebirdSliske</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in second person, but from the perspective of a non-reader Dunmer.</p><p>A short conceptual sketch inside of an AU set in a near future where the fallouts of Morrowind and Oblivion manifest differently, the Third Aldmeri Dominion does not form, Alduin has yet to return, and the Empire no longer stands. </p><p>Vvardenfell is still finding its stability in the wake of the events of Red Year. With it, the Morag Tong sees renewed activity.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Writ for a Scarab</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>You walk the long, dark hall with deliberate steps, red lanterns playing an eerie hue over the bonemold and fabric wrapped around your chest. The nails of the beast next to you click on the cold floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You could not entirely place what it was - one current theory was that it was either afflicted with the particular strand of vampirism that took root in dogs, or a reanimated skinned hound with a muscle rot - but by demeanor, it had clearly been someone's pet at some point. Your pet, now, you supposed, seeing as it had refused to part from your company.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Having something like it along wasn't the ideal circumstance for a writ, but the thought of it crying, alone, tied to one of the Emperor Parasols in the fields outside the city, was not any more appealing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hij-Balmora was like Ald-Balmora in architecture, if not yet in size and organization. You had entered through a grate on the outside, then traveled through the inner rooms of the underworks - more similar to Vivec, whose connecting bridge used to stand off this shore, than its namesake - which had grown into a smaller city all to its own. Great House Sadras had taken the initiative, maybe out of spite to their old political forebears more than anything practical.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But while the House held control on the surface, the Atshalk Tong populated these underworld streets like beetles under a rock. An analogy their own insignias brought to mind, with tapestries stolen from old Telvanni halls and lashed into new designs with ruddy dust paint. Associations with the Sixth House and their ancient Sleeper dens play across the fringes of your mind, but you push them to the side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over an age past, little more than a cultural nightmare now, and you have a task to complete.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The chamber you approach is parallel to one of the subterranean culverts that you know eventually spills out to sea. You can see where a reservoir feeds into the chamber below the walkway ledge, and had you been alone you might have bypassed the entrance archway with a spell of waterwalking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As it was, the once-a-dog wriggles in skittish excitement, like it wished to replicate the movement of the tail its decaying body had lost long ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You sigh, place a firm rub behind its ear holes, and slide your executioner’s longknife from its sheath. You pass through the archway, built almost like the old Velothi style, and come to two realizations:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The chamber is not like the apartments you had wandered through on the way here; it was far larger, reminiscent of the plaza layers of the cantons of Vivec, and unsettlingly empty for its scale. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A blacksmith’s workshop stands near the eastern wall, near the reservoir pool you noticed before, and its forge provides most of the light to the room. A lone figure sits cross-legged on a stout floor cushion, heavily armored and hooded with a full cowl, only his mouth exposed enough to sip from the bowl at his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room reminds you of your young tutelage in the temple, skimming through </span>
  <em>
    <span>2920, Morning Star</span>
  </em>
  <span> with absolute disinterest until you found the passage on the duel between Savirien-Chorak and Prince Juilek. Your mind, with no context for their setting, had constructed a similarly sparse room for their fight, and the conversation of their ruling parents had become twisted to be that of two talking smiths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Muthsera! Have you business?”   the man calls, lowering the bowl to the floor and getting to his feet. Heavy metal sabatons strike the floor as he approaches, collecting his own sword from a side table and giving it a sidelong swing with all the performative cheer of a sports practitioner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You clear your throat, square your shoulders, and settle into a preparatory stance as you recite the words that have been printed upon your mind since the day of your first blood drawn.  “The afore-mentioned personage has been marked for honorable execution in accordance to the lawful tradition and practice of the Morag Tong. The Bearer of this non-disputable ordinance has official sanctioned license to kill the aforementioned -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A heavy blow arcs overhand, and you deflect it down the length of your longknife, diverting him off to the side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No stealthy backstabbing?”  he spits.  “No creeping through the shadows to slit my damned throat while I sleep?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lunges at your stomach, clearly aiming to make a mess more than perform any precision work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He slashes, you recoil; you stab, he blocks. It is a rapid dance, inelegant and crude. The bonedog grows riled, stirred from its fear at the doorway to snarl and yip at his heels. You try to hiss at it, to shoo it, but that makes the intrusion worse. He capitalizes on your split attention: ducking, hooking your prosthetic peg leg, and yanking it out from under you. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before you can reorient and recollect your blade, a sharp kick sends you tumbling into the reservoir.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You choke down water as you sink, the shock of cold forcing out what little air the kick hasn’t. Somewhere, you knew your armor was too heavy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You struggle to picture the syllables for Selyn’s Mist Slippers, clawing for the surface even as it grows further and further out of grasp, the sounds of snarling and shouts warbling and distant. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A heavy influx of a current rises behind you, like a looming shadow of presence, and your stomach drops faster than your body. You hear a final yelp, and see the flailing body of the dog-beast crash through the surface, as a maw closes around you.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Whatever this beast is, it doesn’t seem capable of swallowing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You cling to one chipped tooth, struggling to choke down the air a blowhole pulls in like a respirator. It is too dark to take in the scope of where you are, and spending what little breath you have on a magelight seems unwise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time loses all meaning here, with only the shifting of muscle around you proving that it hasn’t stopped entirely. It may have stayed this way for far longer, were you not nearly thrown to its gullet as the thing bellowed, thrashed, and rolled as it was assaulted from the outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sound of one scraping at the top of its long mouth reaches your ears when the creature finally falls still; it bobs like a small ship, even as water begins to flood the once relatively dry cavity. You throw your gambit, hammering away at the roof of its maw to weaken it from your side, just as your unseen savior does on theirs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Between the both of you, you split a seam in the skin-cartilage wide enough for your hands to work it apart. You push yourself up on shaky arms and stand, flooding your lungs with air and coughing as you take stock of where you have ended up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The beast - whale-like, to use the most generous of similes - unnerves you much the same way bonewalkers do. Maybe it had been made from the same flesh-twisting process, if the way its ridged bones have been forced to the surface, and its proportions twisted into a mouth-biased topheaviness, were anything to go by.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had carried you further down the main culvert, back into the wide hall that formed the center of the canalworks. The click of claws brings attention to the artificial shore, where your savior - not the bone dog, as you might have thought or hoped, but a nix hound, made of mottled reds, oranges, and purples that almost camouflaged it against the tunnel lantern light - retreats down one of the passage ways.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You stumble from the whale and give chase, painfully aware that as far as blades go, you are defenseless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It moves faster than you could hope to in your kit, and you are soon left behind. Maybe this was luck. With the hound out of sight, you slow, and this grants you the clarity to stop before barrelling past an open door arch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You press your palms to the wall and turn a cautious look inward, ears pricked at the sound of a muttering voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the Lesser Scarab Princes, by the looks of their clothing, who entertains themself by pacing before a dim fire pit, swinging a longknife with poor form. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Your </span>
  </em>
  <span>longknife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty shit, aren’t you? Good stroke he already has so many. Let me keep one. Could probably use you on some carrots, carve them up nice. Or that bitch of a saltrice farmer down the way. Right up the ass. You know, if, </span>
  <em>
    <span>one more time-</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You creep past the opening when they turn their back to the door.  </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>After what feels like a small eternity of wandering aimless, you submit to the fact that you have thoroughly lost track of the nix hound, and will have to find a way outside on your own. What has happened to your own dog, you don’t want to consider. You click your tongue softly, hoping to lure its attention from the water or some dark shadow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it is a gesture largely for your own well-being.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>You step out into the scorching sunlight, wincing at the drastic change, and let the access door fall shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hij-Balmora, unlike the H shape of its predecessor, was constructed very much like an L. The long end is split close to the joint by a shallow, muddy canal; an unfinished attempt at replicating what had been a Third Era landmark. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scathing Bay, the remnant of Baar Deu’s impact, runs deep and glitters with its water’s dizzying reflections. There is no dock attached to the streets, with all the port villages further down the crest of the coast, but small fishing vessels still drift close, their nets cast wide behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You start down the street towards the canal, offering small waves to other pedestrians as you plot your imminent plans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Retracing your steps, for one. Finding the entrance you had used prior.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, no, first, locating a replacement knife that will see you through this writ.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You frown. A dog is barking somewhere ahead. It is a strangled, stripped-down rendition of the noise; it might have an infection. Or it might instead be rotting in a few places.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You redouble your pace and hurry on in the direction of the source. You reach the canalside to find a younger Dunmer - in the region of fourty, maybe - as she attempts to get the attention of a beast on the other side; one you recognize. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks to you, then gestures across the muddy water to where the hound yowls and hops in an anxious war dance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That yours? The bridge is out, but it’s not as deep underneath that way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You were already drenched. A bit more wouldn’t hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You follow her direction and wade into the spot she indicates. The heavy water only reaches to your waist, and your armor keeps you grounded against what little current there is, so you find yourself across with little issue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dog doesn’t recognize you, at first, so you crouch to its side and pull it into a tight embrace, holding it there until its racing heart stills and it no longer struggles to jerk away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As it calms, you scoop it up to your shoulders and forge back across to where the younger one still stands. It wriggles to be let down, and you oblige on the other side, giving its shoulder a good firm pat as she rubs its head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You inquire, now, after what has become of the bridge she spoke of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her jaw sets, and she jerks it in a gesture over her shoulder.  “See for yourself. They took the whole thing down. The council takes down where people put up temporary fixes. The only thing left between us and the rest of Balmora now is the aqueduct. Figure that’s where your dog got swept out from.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You question after the reasoning behind this cruelty, and she pulls a face.  “To ‘keep out the trouble makers’. It’s only suppression. That’s all it ever is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The separation is deserved,”  another voice interrupts. You look to the side, and met eyes with a passerby stopped along the road. Her kit is heavy, similar to your own, and the skull on her pauldron looks unsettlingly similar to that of your hound’s.  “You leave well enough alone, child. Don’t go dragging travelers into your goals.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s easy for you to ignore what’s going on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other grunts, clicks her tongue, and continues her path. You watch her as she stalks off, a bright nix hound bounding after her heels.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Non-canon Dunmeri terms are referenced from the collection on the Casual Elder Scrolls Wiki. I have zero claim on them, all due nods to the crowd that workshopped and compiled those.</p><p>Technically wrote this back in May, since it's 99% just a dream that I jotted down and ironed out, but I put it off to the side and just remembered it today. So here we are</p></blockquote></div></div>
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